The impact of digitalization on logo design

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This final thesis has been carried out at the School of Engineering at Jönköping University within [see main field on previous page]. The authors are responsible for the presented opinions, conclusions and results.

Examiner: Anders Rudgård Supervisor: Martin Lindh

Scope: 15 hp (first-cycle education)

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Abstract

A logo is a vital part of any company’s visual identity. The following report explores how logo design got affected by the recent age of digitalization. The report helps outline essential parts of successful logo design for current and future mediums. Since companies want to hire designers or agencies who work based on research and successful methods, this study helps create a generalization of good logo design that is easy to implement.

Our research confirms the notion that design is a science and not an art, since logos are strong when they fulfill their intended purpose and follow specific guidelines. With the help of gathering both quantitative and qualitative data, we found out that the primary change of logo design through digitalization was done because of the medium of which the logos lived. The specific elements that changed were that logos now focus more on logo marks and have solid and memorable colours. Further, we saw that logos had to be distinct and unique to work in the overly saturated digital market. At the same time, logos had to be responsive and have the ability to be showcased in a simple way for it to be ready for any medium it could be thrown against.

By analyzing some of the most successful logos of all time such as Apple, Adidas, and Nike this report gets an understanding of the part their logo had in making their brands successful. Which is also complemented by insightful interviews with industry professional designers who helped develop logos and brands for companies such as Burger King, Netflix, and Audi. All this together helped outline a valid understanding of what makes a good logo for the digital age.

Keywords: Graphic design, Logo design, Branding, Visual Communications, identity, marketing, digitalization.

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1 Background

In the early 1800s, the first idea of a logo started showing up to represent various businesses. Today, a business can barely operate without a corporate logo, which is known to be the face of a company (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017). Therefore, logos are said to be one of the most essential elements in a company's visual brand identity. As Well as being the first element to be memorized by the customer when remembering a brand (Keany & McDermott, 2019). It aids the company's customers to associate a designed icon and/or typography to the company, making it easier to create brand awareness and build trust between the company and the customer, leading to trust in their products/services.

In the 1970s, a product was launched that soon would send the whole world into a revolution. The product was the first personal computer that had a digital screen that could display information. (Pursell & Hughes, 1991) Since the 70s, computers have become more powerful and can communicate more information faster and in new, innovative ways. Today it is normal for an average household to have many digital screens all around the house. Since digital screens are now the primary place people go to consume information, companies now put most of their communication effort into meeting their customers through digital media. After the digitalization, people no longer looked to traditional media in the same way, and that meant that companies had to update their brand identities to meet the new need on the screen.

One part of the brand identity that had to change was the logo. As they look now, logos have gone through many changes in their 200 years of existence. Not only because of popular culture and style trends but also because of the place where the logos have lived. The primary medium where logos live has changed and expanded so drastically since its first appearance. In the earlier days, logos were stamped on crates, branded on cattle and printed on paper. However, due to historical changes in how information is communicated, the place where logos live has shifted, and many constructing elements of the logo have been impacted. The biggest of the historical changes that affected logo design has been the digital revolution. This revolution has

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affected the market so that logos now primarily live on digital screens since that is where the companies have the biggest opportunity to meet the customers and build brand awareness (Edelman, 2010). Today's average human spends many hours in front of various types of screens daily. This statistic shows that the company's customers exist in the digital world instead of more traditional mediums like printed newspapers (Matei, 2019).

We believe that this change of the medium in which the logo exists has greatly affected the look and the design of logos. Designers are taught to create logos with the end purpose in mind, and when the primary place of existence for a logo changes, its design will have to change to better adapt to the new medium. This is why companies feel the need to redesign their logos and stay relevant and make sure that their brand can live on in the new and evolving mediums of the digital age. If they do not stay relevant and have a brand that speaks to their audience in the mediums where they exist, they risk losing customers and, consequently, money. This shows the importance of studying and understanding what makes an excellent logo in the digital world.

1.1 Problem statement

Since logo design has gone through many changes through its years of existence, mainly because of its mediums of which it has existed, it is vital to study and understand and see what makes a good logo in the different stages. By studying and understanding what factors were important through logo redesigns brought on by digitalization, we can design better logos that help create revenue and trust for a company's brand and prepare designers for future changes in logo design (Airey, 2015). Logo designers need to know and understand what factors are essential for a logo. Is it the colours, the logo symbol, the style, the typography or the responsiveness?

We know that the technology and media that we use will constantly keep evolving, and companies need to represent themselves with their logos in new clever ways in the future. If we can understand and dissect what has shaped logo design into what it is today, we can better understand and predict the logo design of tomorrow and make

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it easier for logo designers to design logos that are adaptable for different future platforms, such as VR (Munawaroh, 2015).

1.2 Purpose and research questions

This paper is an examination of logo design before and after digitalization. It aims to explore how digitalization has impacted logo design in different aspects and see which logo elements have been influenced by digitalization. Elements such as the color of the logos, the type of logos and the typography used in logos. This paper also examines the practical applications of logos in different digital platforms and environments. The purpose of this thesis is to provide insight of what characteristics could distinguish a successful logo in current and future mediums and what is essential to focus on and think about when designing a digital-friendly logo. This paper uses developed research questions that are essential to reach the purpose of the research process. The research questions will help improve logo design in the digital world, aiding companies to achieve an effective positive response, and improve their connection to their customers behind the screen.

1.2.1 Research questions

The research questions consist of the following:

● In what way has digitalization impacted logo design?

○ Which elements of the logo were impacted by the digitalization, and in what way?

○ How are logos designed to be used in the digital age?

1.3 Scope and limitations

There are several historical events that potentially may have changed the way logos look and behave, including the industrial revolution, globalization and the open market and finally, digitalization & social media emergence (Kohli & Suri, 2002). This study focuses specifically on digitalization and the effect that it has had on logo design since our hypothesis is that it has had an enormous impact on logo design and its elements through history. We believe that there is a pattern where many large

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companies chose to go through a large logo redesign process after the digital revolution. Which we think is mainly due because of the changes the digital medium brought with it. Digitalization brought a drastic change in how and where customers sought information, and therefore today, an average company mainly uses digital media to market and reach their audience (Crowley & Heyer, 2010). This means that digital media should be the most commonplace for companies' logos to live.

It is hard to pinpoint an exact timeframe on when the digitalization occurred because it happened gradually over a long time and, to an extent, is still happening today. Crowley & Heyer showed that for information and communication, releasing the personal computer and later the world wide web was a significant shift in how ordinary people consumed information (Crowley & Heyer, 2010). Therefore, this study chooses to focus on digitalization of communication and design to be at its peak in 1989, which is the year of the invention of the World Wide Web (Jacksi & Abass, 2019). Digital screens had existed for a while before, but it is because of the world wide web that customers would spend time searching information and where companies later would have most of their marketing. There are many other key dates in terms of digitalization, but this study targets 1989 as the most relevant for the study at hand. When this paper utilizes the term “after digitalization” it is meant as after the chosen year of 1989, not after the era of digitalization as a whole, which arguably does not exist yet.

In terms of logo design, many elements have to be considered when designing a successful logo, yet alone defining a successful logo. This study defines a successful logo as a logo that works well in the mediums represented in and stands out (Kohli & Suri, 2002).

Some existing studies show different elements that are important for a good logo design. Airey says it to be relevant and simple (Airey, 2015). Kohli & Suri says it needs to be unique and not generic, as well as a good visual representation (Kohli & Suri, 2002). Bresciani & Del Ponte further discuss that other essential elements are the colours and typography used and how much focus is put on the type compared to the logo mark (Bresciani & Del Ponte, 2017). Therefore the logo elements that this study is focusing specifically on are: the concept of the logos, if the logos focus on a logo mark or logotype, the typography and colours used, the simplicity of the logos and the

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platforms that the logos were created for. This hopefully will help us see which characteristics of a logo are needed prior compared to after digitalization.

It is not possible to accurately know if the changes we see in logos before and after digitalization are based solely on the change of the primary medium. There are possibilities that other factors have affected logo design, such as design trends. This study chooses not to study these trends but instead focuses on giving a general idea of how digitalization has changed logo design. We believe that since the span of digitalization stretches over several decades, design trends will not have a lasting impact on logo design as digitalization will.

This study also limits itself to only studying B2C companies. B2C companies are companies that through their branding are directly targeting consumers. This means that no B2B companies will be studied since they do not directly target consumers. 1.4 Disposition

The rest of the report is showcasing an analysis study done on logos before and after digitalization and interviews with industry professionals on the process of logo design. First, the data collection and data analysis methods for the quantitative analysis study will be presented, which shows how the analyzed logos were chosen, how they were analyzed and what results could be seen. Later the insights gained from the qualitative research with professional logo designers are showcased and the similarities that could be seen in their design methods. In the end, the conclusions can be seen that were drawn based on the quantitative and qualitative research as well as how that information compares to the theoretical framework that we had established in chapter three.

2 Method and implementation

This paper uses both quantitative and qualitative research to answer the research questions concerning the evolution of logo design through digitalization.

The quantitative research is made up of an analysis, where a selected list of successful consumer-based company’s logos is analyzed against each other before and after digitalization. The selected logos are compared in certain elements prior and after their digitalization redesign to find common trends and changes. The elements

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analyzed are such as if the logo leans toward a flat or skeuomorphic design or if the logo is icon-based or typography-based; see the complete list in chapter 2.1.1. This quantitative study allows us to derive facts from the collected data, including differences and similarities between these logos before and after digitalization (Madrigal & McClain, 2012).

To complement and further validate the quantitative research, this study also contains qualitative research to provide more detailed data and enable a more profound understanding by answering the questions “how?” and “why?”. The qualitative research includes interviews with well-known designers and design agency representatives around the world. The interviews focus on the logo design process and the reasoning behind logo design so that we can understand what choices are made in logo designs and how field professionals design logos to be adapted to different platforms and applications through digitalization.

2.1 Data Collection

2.1.1 Quantitative Data collection

A survey was designed and sent out to 20 design students and professionals to collect data for the quantitative research. The survey included a list of 28 companies with two versions of their logos, one of which was the closest logo the company officially used prior to the digitalization, which this study determines as 1989, the invention of the www. The other version is the one which was the latest active logo of the company. The companies were selected by a few specific criteria to make sure that only successful logos from strong brands were analyzed so that the most accurate data of a successful logo would be gathered. Firstly, 100 companies were selected that existed in the book “Logo Life” (Van Der Vlugt, 2012) which contains a list of iconic logos. Secondly, the companies selected also had to exist on the Forbes 100 most valuable brands list of 2020 (Swant, 2021), leaving us with 30 logos. Lastly, all companies that did not exist prior to digitalization were removed as well as all companies that did not directly target customers (B2B). Also, to avoid misleading the participants, Audi’s logo was removed from the list because Audi used multiple logos simultaneously. The four rings mark of Audi was removed from the logo in 1978, but it remained in use on

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the front of their cars (Van Der Vlugt, 2012). (See figures 1, 2, 3) for a rundown of companies selected.

Figure 1: The exist of logo life before digitalization

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Figure 3: final list of logo design after digitalization

For the survey, two logos were selected from the company. One which was their current logo and one which was the closest logo used prior to 1989. To determine these logos, the book Logo Life was used (Vlugt, 2012) as well as the logo database www.1000logos.net (Titov, n.d.). The survey included nine categories where each logo, both the new and the old, was scored on a scale of 1-10 on each category to get data on the various characteristics of the logo. The categories included:

● How bold is the typography in the logo? (1=not bold, 10 = very bold)

● Is the typography leaning towards serif or sans-serif? (1=fully serif, 10 = fully sans-serif)

● Does the logo focus more on the logotype or the logo mark? (1= only logotype, 10 = only logo mark)

● Is the logo leaning more towards a flat or a skeuomorphic design? (1= skeuomorphic, 10 = fully flat design)

● Amount of colors used in the logo (the answer being the amount of colors) ● How big part does the color take in the logo?

(1= small focus, 10 = big focus) ● Is the logo geometric or organic?

(1= highly organic design, 10 = highly geometric design) ● Is the logo abstract or literal?

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● Is the logo generic or distinctive?

(1= highly generic design, 10 = highly distinctive design)

The survey was then filled out by 20 designers, both students and professionals, to get an average of each category on every logo. Then, another average of all the pre-digitalization logos and the post-digitalization logos were calculated on all nine categories. This was done to be able to see an apparent change in numbers in the various characteristics of the logos prior to and after digitalization and see a general change of logo design in the digital world.

2.1.2 Qualitative Data collection

For this study, all of the interviews were conducted via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Both software are efficient ways to conduct such interviews and are the only practical ways for the researcher to interview those participants from across the country/city. The interview process started with reminding the participants of the purpose behind this study, the expected outcomes and, of course, gaining permission to record and use their interviews in this research.

The interviews for the qualitative study were conducted as semi-structured interviews, which are suitable to get clear answers as well as gathering deeper information on what the interviewees were talking about (Wilson, 2012). The questions that were included in the semi-structured interviews were the following:

● How do you define a Logo and What makes a good logo?

○ Why is it so important for a business or a brand to have a good logo? ● What is the difference between designing logos now compared to before

digitalization?

○ What specific elements of the logo are different now?

● Why do you think some companies had to rebrand their identities and especially logos under digitalization?

● What is important to think about when designing logos for brands in the digital era?

○ Nowadays where do you as a designer design logos to be used generally?

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● Do you consider the animation of the logo while designing it or do you just finish the logo and then work on the animation part?

Participants

The interview participants were chosen to be representatives of professional designers and design agencies with good practical knowledge in the field of branding and logo design. Therefore the study contains interviews with some of the largest and most famous designers and agency representatives within branding and logo design. The interviewees were also chosen from a variety of companies across several countries to get a more global view. The interviewees consisted of:

● Simon Dixon, Co-founder of DixonBaxi, UK ● Professor Rayan Abdullah, Markenbau, Germany

● Sean Thomas, Executive Creative Director at Jones Knowles Ritchie, UK ● Jonas Berg, Design Director at Silver, Sweden

● Anders Dalgren, Creative Director at NY studio, Sweden 2.2 Data Analysis

The study uses the data collected from the quantitative study and analyzes it to see apparent quantitative changes in the appearance and functionality of logo design before and after digitalization. The categories which did not see a significant change were considered as not affected by digitalization. The categories that did change more significantly were then compared to the data collected in the qualitative interviews to see if the findings agreed with real-life projects in the field of logo design. The interviews were further used to understand why specific characteristics changed. The data analysis process for the qualitative data started by transcribing the videos of the interviews into written text. The next step was highlighting quotes and phrases from the interviews that were significant to the study and that helped answer the research questions. With the use of the constant comparative method (Glaser, 1965) the information gathered from the interviews was thematically sorted and categorized to see what similar thoughts existed between the different interviewees. These were then composed into general arguments that answer the research questions.

The arguments were then compared back to the quantitative findings to try and find similarities and draw conclusions. Those conclusions were then compared in chapter

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five with the findings presented in the theoretical framework to see how well the findings held up to prior research as well as seeing where certain knowledge in older publications may have changed since before digitalization.

2.3 Validity and reliability

2.3.1 Validity and reliability of analyzed logos

The study aims to study and characterize successful logos in the digital world, which is the reason for choosing to analyze famous logos from solid brands in the quantitative study. Strong and valuable brands have a larger sum of money to invest in branding and hire the best in the field. Their valuable brands are also a testament that they have successfully navigated through digitalization, even though their success can not only be credited to their logo. By analyzing these successful logos, the study hopes to get a better and more accurate understanding of what a successful logo is. The book "Logo Life" (Van Der Vlugt, 2012) which was used to define the most memorable logos, is written by designer Ron Van Der Vlugt. Van Der Vlugt is the owner of the award-winning design agency "SOGOOD" as well as previous Creative Director at "TBWA/Designers Company" and Type Director at "Saatchi & Saatchi". He has many years of experience in the field of graphic design and logo design in general. In the book, Van Der Vlugt presents and analyzes the history of 100 of the world's most famous logos.

Forbes 100 most valuable brands list of 2020 presented by Marty Swant (Swant, 2021) uses a combination of the company's revenue and the role of the brand in their respective industry to present the top 100 most valuable global brands.

The reason that the invention of the WWW, the year of 1989, was used as the breakpoint year before digitalization is that it was not until the internet that all companies started getting represented digitally, even though digital media existed before 1989.

2.3.2 Validity and reliability of Interview participants

The interview participants were chosen to be representatives of the professional design world. Below you can find the motivations for each participant's work and validity in the field of logo design.

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Simon Dixon is the founder and CEO of DixonBaxi, which is a UK based agency. DixonBaxi has worked with well-known brands like AC Milan, Regent's place, Netflix, Hulu, Premier league, Fox, etc.

Rayan Abdullah is a Professor of Design and Typography at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. He worked for the agency Meta design in Germany for many years and designed well-known logos like Audi, Bugatti, Volkswagen, as well as Germany's national symbol. He has also designed more than 20 typefaces and written seven books about typography, pictograms and branding.

Sean Thomas is an executive creative director at UK agency Jones Knowles Ritchie. JKR has worked with many big brands such as Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Heinz, Baskin Robbins and others and won many awards for their work.

The participants also represented two big local agency representatives as well: Jonas Berg from the Swedish agency Silver and Anders Dahlgren from NY Studio. These agencies have worked with large Swedish brands such as Lundhags, Husqvarna and ICA.

2.4 Considerations

This study does take into consideration that the interviews may have ethically affected the results. The interview participants were giving their personal opinions according to their experience in the profession. But as stated earlier, the interview participants were chosen to represent a professional, diverse group of people to get wider and more accurate results. However, because of the study's limitations and the limited time that existed for scheduling interviews we did not get any answers on interviews with women within the field of design, which would have been preferred.

Another thing we have considered is that the quantitative study only focused on big companies and already strong brands and studied their logos. There is a big possibility that different considerations should be taken when designing logos for smaller brand companies. We chose the big brands because it was a simple way to analyze successful examples.

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3 Theoretical framework

In this part, an overview of the terminology used and the theoretical background for the project will be given. A rundown of logo design before and after digitalization will also be presented. The first part contains a presentation of widely used terms in the paper and what is meant by the words.

3.1 Terminology 3.1.1 Logo

Balmer defines the logo as a distinctive, consistent way a company is conveyed, often as either an icon or in typography (Balmer, 2001). The logo can consist of both a logotype and a logo mark in various formations and emphasizations (May, 2017). 3.1.2 Brand

A brand is the customer’s image of a company, the logo is typically used as the face of a brand. Seth Godin, the well-known American author and the former Dot-Com executive defines the brand as the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that together account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another (Godin, 2009).

3.1.3 Typography

Typography is the arrangement of language and letters in a printed or digital manner (Baines & Haslam, 2005). A typeface is a designed collection of letterforms that is used when creating typography digitally. Typography is used in logo design to communicate the name of the company, known as a logotype, together with other information. It makes the personality type of the brand readable and helps the brand to show its class by which typeface is used.

3.1.4 Responsivity

Responsivity is highly important in the digital mediums such as on the web, where content is not static but is shown in different ways based on the device it is viewed on. The meaning of responsivity is that something is created to be able to easily adapt to different circumstances (Mihajlović, Gajić, Stanković, Tair, 2016). In logo design, a responsive logo means that it fits well in different mediums.

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3.1.5 digitalization

The digitalization is the time in history where computers started to emerge and become a normal household item (Molesworth & Denegri-Knott, 2012). This eventually led to the majority of content that traditionally would be shown on other traditional mediums switched to a digital one, including logos.

3.2 Theoretical Background 3.2.1 How has logo design evolved?

As stated in the background, the modern logo as it exists today on digital screens has gone through various changes since its first use. One of the major differences in the early days of the modern logo around the early 1900s, is that logos were mostly used as trademarks. The trademark was important to protect the company and it’s products against forgery, counterfeiting, and other fraud laws. Logos at that time were not necessarily designed for the end customers sake but the protection of the company (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017). It was not until the mid-1970s that businesses noticed that brands with customer-focused marketing and design sold more products. After this discovery, big companies started putting large sums of money into logo and identity design which consequently changed the business of logo design. Logo design shifted from more of an art to a science focusing on building trust with the customer (Kohli & Suri, 2002).

Logos have since been used to build trust in a brand. The brand is the sum of all perceptions a customer has over a product or company, where the logo acts as the face that reminds of the brand’s personality and qualities, which helps to steer the customers trust. In a test, the approval rating for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes increased from 47 percent in a “blind” test to 59 percent when the name was revealed (Kohli & Suri, 2002).

Before digitalization, the place where logos mainly would be seen was on the products' packaging (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017). This meant that many product decisions and the overall brand trust of the customer were made in the store since around 60 percent of consumer purchase decisions occur inside the store (Kohli & Suri, 2002). However, today in the digital world we live in, more decisions are

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made before seeing the product. These decisions are often based on the brands that you trust. Many customers rarely even see the product before buying them since you often buy directly from the company’s website, which is also a contributor to their brand experience.

Since logos before digitalization most often were seen on packaging of products, the logos had to be tested and designed primarily based on the place where they would live (Kohli & Suri, 2002). This of course gave different products and companies different results for good logo design based on their market needs today. Instead, almost exclusively all brands must be represented on digital screens in different ways on social media and websites. This means that most logos after digitalization are designed to work on the product as well as on digital media. This means that logo design today has more requirements on a logo for it to work on a digital screen and social media as on packaging. This is why more general models for logo design are needed after digitalization compared to prior.

Another thing that has changed through digitalization is that a logo is no longer interchangeable with the brand image. Today the logo is just one part of a grander visual identity that should be cohesive to affect the customer’s trust, known as the brand. (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017)

One thing that the digitalization and the globalization of our world has done is that a customer now on a daily basis interacts with so many more brands compared to before, largely due to social media (Edelman, 2010). According to Kohli & Suri, the market is so saturated that a company needs a good logo and branding to stand out. (Kohli & Suri, 2002). Good logos are proven to be more important for creating trust when there is a space or time constraints (Kohli & Suri, 2002), which is what the digital world has brought. Kohli & Suri also argue that businesses' uniqueness in the digital era has less focus on the quality and the price of a product but more on the brand trust accompanied by the product and is achieved through design, marketing, and service (Kohli & Suri, 2002). It is also shown that digital media is better at building brand awareness than more traditional media such as printed material (Kusuma, A, Purbantina, Riswari Tutiasri, 2020).

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3.2.2 When should a brand redesign?

Because of the big changes and requirements that digitalization brought on logos many big brands decided to redesign their logos to adapt. Olins explains that ideally, companies should only change their corporate logo when the company is going through a strategic change and need to update the brand to match it (Olins, 1978). This means that if logos get redesigned it should be for the reason of content and not for style. Of course, even big companies are not perfect and often redesign to match current design trends. However, you can see that the most powerful brands did not tend to redesign based on style. The change brought to a brand should also be incremental, not to lose the customers' trust (Kohli & Suri, 2002).

Another reason to redesign logos is to strengthen the brand or refocus the brand strategically. Betty Crocker's image is an example that had to be redesigned to keep on looking like a modern woman as the society changed. If the company wouldn’t have redesigned, it would have potentially lost brand trust to the woman of the time, who thought that Betty looked old-fashioned (Kohli & Suri, 2002). Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta agree in the argument that when you need a new brand position you often need a new logo also (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017).

The last shown reason to redesign a logo is to fight against the “boredom effect”, where customers lose trust in a logo the more they encounter it. However, new logos can also threaten customers since humans tend to stray away from new and unknown things. This means that a logo should be redesigned to stay interesting but not change too much to scare customers away (Kohli & Suri, 2002). Cox & Cox also show that a simple logo is affected more by the boredom effect than a more advanced one. (Cox & Cox, 1988). Cox & Cox however, instead argue the opposite, that when a customer encounters a logo a lot it instead benefits from the “familiarity effect”, which helps build trust. This shows that different opinions exist about this subject in the academic world, which this study hopes to further clarify.

3.2.3 What makes a good logo?

Since a logo is a strong part of a brand’s identity it is important to understand what elements are needed in a good logo. According to Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, a logo is primarily made up of names, icons (logo marks), typefaces and color schemes (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017).

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Results have shown that logos composed of an icon plus a brand name are perceived as significantly more attractive than logos made of one component only, and that black logos are perceived as more attractive than colored logos (Bresciani & Del Ponte, 2017). However, according to Macklin, colors are a key part that help customers recognize brands better and are a strong part of the visual language of a logo (Macklin, 1996). Since there are different opinions on this subject, this study is trying to research what is most effective in terms of color usage in logo design.

Color has the power to induce emotions and moods, which helps in creating a brand personality that creates trust. Color is also a tool that can be used to differentiate brands from their competitors, which again is clearly needed in a digital world (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017). Since color has the power to speak to customers it also can be interpreted differently based on culture. This means that it probably is not good to have too many colors that communicate different things. Some brands have such a strong association with a certain color that they are more recognizable than their logo: Mcdonald’s, Coca-Cola. It is also shown that it is important for both colors and typography when used in a logo to be legible and with enough contrast to make it legible. Which in logo design often means bold typography. (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017).

According to Kohli & Suri, when a logo visually represents something and has a literal meaning, it is easier for the customer to build trust with it. Also when the visual representation is consistent across the brand (Kohli & Suri, 2002). Because of this Callcott and Philips argue that: “A logo that readily cues the product is a big advantage” (Callcott and Phillips 1996). This is because customers often look for meaning in logos to connect with.

Another important part of a good logo is that the icon or logo mark should be easy to recognize and quick to associate. This means that logos should lean to being simple and not too advanced (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017). Airey agrees that logos in the digital age should aim to be simple, relevant, incorporate tradition, distinct and focused (Airey, 2015).

Lastly, a good logo should be unique, not generic (Kohli & Suri, 2002). You should not go with what is visually popular at the moment or a design that works for other brands. Nike’s swoosh inspired many companies to try and incorporate swooshes in their logos but most failed. As a brand, you must aim to be distinct and not generic.

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Logos should be based on strategy and on what works for the customers (Kohli & Suri, 2002).

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4 Results

Below you can find the results from the two studies, first the quantitative analysis and then the qualitative interviews.

4.1 Quantitative study

4.1.1 Quantitative collected data

As presented in the quantitative research framework of chapter 2 above, a survey was distributed among logo designers and students to analyze the chosen list of logos before and after digitalization. The survey gathered answers on a scale between 1-10 for each category defined in the research design.

The results presented in (Figure 4) below represent the average numbers for each category of the study both before and after digitalization. When the data collection was completed, all the responses were taken and sorted in an excel file. The researchers then calculated the average number for each category, as listed below (Figure 4).

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For example, The average result for the boldness of the typography used in logos before digitalization is 7.25 out of 10, while 6.9 out of 10 after digitalization. In the following data analysis each specific category is presented and individually analyzed. 4.1.2 Quantitative data analysis

On observation of both periods, before and after digitalization, it was apparent that the results showed that some categories changed slightly while changes were bigger in other categories. However, no enormous changes were noticed in any of the categories (see Figure 5)

Figure 5: An observation of the categories results before and after digitalization

Boldness:

Before digitalization, all the researched logos used typography that was regular, bold or black. None of them used light or thin typography (Based on a scale of 1-10 where thin=1, light=3, regular=5, bold=8, black 10). The overall average for boldness was 7.32/10 which means that the average typography boldness was between regular and bold while leaning closer towards bold.

After digitalization, no huge observations were noticed. Only Microsoft and Pepsi used typography that was less than regular or between light and regular. The rest of them also used typography between regular and black. Meanwhile, the average result for boldness was slightly decreased to be 6.97/10 after the digitalization. One of the

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biggest transformations when it comes to boldness was done by Microsoft, who moved from bold typography to using light-regular typography instead. (See figure 6 )

Figure 6: The microsoft logo boldness before and after digitalization

Serif or San Serif:

In general, the difference between the two eras on a scale of 1-10 is only 0.01 out of 10, which generally means no noticeable changes were found. On the other hand, we can notice that Sans-Serif typography was more likely to be used both before and after digitalization. 6 out of 23 the logos who have logotypes used serif or close to serif typography before digitalization (they got less than five on a scale of 1-10 where the value 1 represents serif fonts and 10 represents san serif fonts). On the other hand, 4 out of the 19 logos who have logotypes after digitalization used serif or close to serif typography (got more than five on a scale of 1-10).

Focus on Logo Mark:

The focus on logo marks increased after digitalization by +0.85 out of 10 compared to before digitalization, which is the biggest difference in all the categories of the study. 18 out 27 brands focused on their logo mark more than their logotype before digitalization (they got more than five on a scale of 1-10 where the value 1 represents the focus on logotype and the value 10 represents the focus on a logo mark). After

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digitalization, the number increased to become 20 out of 27 brands that focused on their logo mark more than their logotype. Based on the results listed below (Figure 7), eight of the conducted brands laid their entire focus on their logo marks after digitalization (They got more than 9/10). These brands are Apple, Mcdonalds, Starbucks, Nike, Toyota, Mastercard, Volkswagen and Mercedes. Three of these eight brands work in the automobile industry. In the whole research, only five brands who work in the automobile industry were analyzed (Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, Ford, Toyota). Only one of them leans to focus on the logotype more than the logo mark, which is Ford (Got an average of 4.01 on a scale of 1-10), while the rest lay their focus on the logo mark.

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Figure 7: The results of focus on logo mark before and after digitalization

Flat or Skeuomorphic:

In general, Flatness was and still is the preferred concept for the analyzed logos. In the era before digitalization, only two out of the 27 logos leaned towards 3D or skeuomorphic logos, which are: Ford (Figure 8) and Toyota. The rest of the analyzed logos were flat or leaning more towards a flat design (they got more than five on a scale of 1-10 where the value 1 represents Skeuomorphic logos and 10 represents flat logos). The average result of all the logos was 8.14 out of 10.

Figure 8: The ford logo before and after digitalization

After digitalization, only Mercedes’ logo was skeuomorphic, whereas John Deere’s logo was leaning toward a skeuomorphic design. The rest of the logos were leaning enormously toward being flat logos, and the average result for the entire logos had increased to become 8.42 on a scale of 1-10. (See figure 9)

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Figure 9: The results of flatness in logo design before and after digitalization

Amount of colours:

Based on the listed results below, a moderate transformation was noticed between the two periods in terms of the amount of colour used in the logos. Before digitalization, the average amount of colours used in each logo was 2.26 colours, and the number decreased by 8.8% to become 2.06 colours after digitalization (see figure 11).

In the era before digitalization and based on the results listed below (figure 11), 12 logos had one colour (they got a value less than 1.5 out of 10 where the value 1 represents one colour and the value 10 represents ten colours), Only 4 out of 27 logos

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had more than three colours (they got a value more than 3.5 out of 10), and only one logo had more than five colours which is the Apple logo (see figure 10).

Figure 10: The Apple logo before and after digitalization

After digitalization, we could also see that 12 logos had one colour (they got a value less than 1.5 out of 10), Only two logos had more than three colours (they got value more than 3.5 out of 10). Only one logo after digitalization had more than four colours which was the Microsoft logo (Figure 6).

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Figure 11: The results of amount of colors used in logo design before and after digitalization

Focus on colour:

Similar to the focus on the logo mark, the average focus on colour has increased Significantly after digitalization by +0.8 out of 10 compared with it before digitalization (Figure 12). In the era before digitalization, 19 of the 27 analyzed brands laid high focus on their colours (they got more than five on a scale of 1-10 where the value 1 represents a low focus on colours and 10 represents a high focus on

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colours). On the other hand, 22 of the 27 analyzed brands put a higher focus on their colours after digitalization.

Figure 12: The results of focus on colors used in logo design before and after digitalization

Geometric or Organic:

Many of the logos used in the study use geometrical shapes in their logos both before and after digitalization. On average, a slight increase by +0.25 out of 10 was noticed after digitalization compared with before digitalization. 6.59 out of the ten logos used geometric logos after digitalization. (figure 13)

In the era before digitalization, 21 out of 27 of the logos were leaning toward being geometric (they got a value higher than 5 out of 10 where the value 1 represents Organic logos and the value 10 represents Geometric logos) while only 6 out of the 27 were leaning to be organic. After digitalization, 22 out of the 27 logos were leaning toward being geometric logos, while only 5 out of the 27 were leaning toward being organic. Three of the 27 analyzed logos got a value less than three before

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digitalization which is Burger King, Coca Cola and KFC. In contrast, only the Coca-Cola logo got a value less than three after digitalization.

Figure 13: The geometric or organic logos comparison results before and after digitalization

Abstract or Literal:

On average, the use of conceptual abstracts was increased by +0.53 out of 10 after digitalization compared to before digitalization (Figure 14). 6 out of 10 logos use abstract shapes in their logo marks.

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In the era before digitalization, 17 out of 27 logos were leaning towards abstract logos (they got a value higher than five on a scale of 1-10 where the value 1 represents literal logos and 10 represents abstract logos). After digitalization, the number increased, where 19 out of 27 logos were leaning towards abstract logos.

Figure 14: The abstract or literal logos comparison results before and after digitalization

Distinctive or Generic:

Before digitalization, none of the 27 logos was leaning towards being generic (none of them got a value lower than five on a scale of 1-10, where the value 1 represents generic and ten represents being distinctive). The overall average result for the

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category before digitalization was 7.25 out of 10. The overall average slightly increased after digitalization by 0.58/10 to become 7.82 out of 10. (see figure 15)

Figure 15: The Distinctive or Generic logos comparison results before and after digitalization

4.2 Results of the qualitative study

In this section, the results for the qualitative study are presented and analyzed according to the analysis method stated in chapter 2. The method which was used for analyzing the qualitative data was the constant comparative method.

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The results gathered from the qualitative study are presented in three main sections, which are based on the research questions. In the first part, the interview participants defined the logo and discussed what characteristics and features should be taken into consideration when designing successful logos. In the second part, the participants answered questions about the impact of digitalization on logo design and in what way logos have been influenced by digitalization if there was an impact. In the last part, the participants answered questions about the usage of logos in different mediums nowadays and motion graphics.

4.2.1 Logo definition and characteristics

In this part, the answers of the interview participants on what a logo means and what makes a good logo are shown. Even though the participants had different versions and definitions for what a logo is or means, they all agreed that a good product needs a good logo, but also that a good logo does not necessarily mean a good product.

Anders Dalgren defined a logo as "the fingerprint of a brand" or the part by which we can differentiate different brands from each other, while Sean Thomas described it as a shorthand for the entire brand and a way to recognize the brand among other brands. Thomas also mentioned that logos should be recognizable and distinctive. Jonas Berg mentioned on his part that a logo is the fastest way to recognize a brand. From another point of view, Rayan Abdullah emphasized the role of the intellectual process while designing a logo more than the design process itself. He described a logo as "the biggest philosophy in the smallest space". Abdullah further highlights that the intellectual process of creating a logo is more vital than the traditional design process and that logos should represent the whole philosophy and values of a company. Connected to this, Abdullah gave an example: "When we started working on Germany's national logo symbol, the mission was to reflect the identity of 82 million through a symbol. because the design process must follow the intellectual process". Likewise, Simon Dixon mentioned: "A logo is like an empty vessel unless it is filled with meaning, a great identity is how you fill the meaning into it. So it's how it fits into people's lives and its relationship with them.". Dixon stated that the whole brand is what makes a good logo, not the opposite and that logos are just like visual placeholders or reminders of a service or a product. Dixon used the strong brand Nike as an example: "The Nike swoosh, for example, has built resonance into the idea of

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just do it and making people better athletes and feeling good about themselves. The swoosh itself is entirely meaningless until you apply it to an object of desire, such as a sneaker, but the idea that you will be happier, fitter, and have a more enjoyable lifestyle. That's why the swoosh has meaning. Otherwise, it doesn't mean anything". As you see in the figure below, the five participants had very close answers when it came to the question of what makes a good logo (Figure 16).

Figure 16: The comparison between participants' answers related to research questions.

5/5 of the interviewees believed that a good logo should be meaningful and clear. Their interviews showed that by meaningful, they did not mean that a good logo should be generic but instead that it should have a clear and unique idea behind it. This idea should represent the brand, its story and its values.

The second most favourable feature was that a logo should be timeless and responsive. 5/5 believed that a good logo needs to be responsive and that it is favourable for companies to have logos that work well in different sizes and lockups across various mediums.

A distinctive and easily distinguishable logo was also one of the most mentioned features for a good logo. 4/5 participants noted that logos should be distinctive to stand out from similar brands. 3/5 also believe that a logo should be memorable. According to them, memorable means that the logo should be robust and solid so that it persists in the viewer's mind when he/she has seen it once or twice.

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Two out of the participants believed that a logo should be simple. Contradictory, two out of the other participants said it is risky to go with an overly simple logo since it makes it hard for the logo to be unique. Those who believed that a good logo should be simple emphasized that simplicity makes the logo symbols easier to recognize and remember.

Also, two out of five participants think that a good logo should be relevant to reflect the brand personality and identity and communicate with the targeted audience.

4.2.2 Logo design under digitalization

According to the interviewees, many parts within logo design changed during digitalization. One change was that digitalization, together with globalization, forced logo design to be universal and follow global rules and the local. Rayan Abdullah mentioned that this change is explicitly seen in colour design and the understanding of colour psychology, where different cultures have different symbolism and emotions connected to different colours. This change also applies to typography and semiotics, or the science of signs and symbols. Simon Dixon believed that digitalization's main impact was through changing the speed at which design can be created and how to design software makes the design more flexible with all of its new technologies and tools, such as gradients.

The focus on colour increased during digitalization, according to Anders Dalgren. He believed that the logo's colour is becoming more simple while the brand colours are becoming more vital. Sean Thomas agreed that he had seen an increase in the focus on colour and mentioned, "Before digitalization, you had to worry about what your logo looked like on black and white a lot, because of the printers, not anymore." By his side, Simon Dixon agreed that the role of colour has become more important today. Dixon added that the power of colour has the potential to be used more in design, marketing language and communications. He lifts up both Coca-Cola and WhatsApp as excellent representations of today's brand colour emphasization.

Typography has also been impacted by digitalization, according to Anders Dalgren, who mentioned that; before digitalization, all design was done by hand, whereas today, it is a much simpler process to incorporate typography. He added that the number of fonts had increased significantly since before digitalization because of computers and software.

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Aside from typography and colours, the direction of logo design regarding flatness and simplicity was controversial. Some participants believed that simplicity and flatness are nothing but trends that are driven by technology. Others said that simplicity is needed in the digital world and that it will stay. Anders Dalgren thinks that flat design is a trend but will still be valid in the future. Similarly, Jonas Berg thinks that simplicity and flatness are countertrends to the skeuomorphic trend of earlier decades. Sean Thomas expressed his worry regarding simplicity and mentioned that a too simple logo would not work without meaning or clarity. He thinks that simplicity can be a double-edged sword. Simon Dixon argued that "simplicity is just a trend and that simplifying logos does not design, it is the leading technology system, not the design leading it and this can change when the technology needs it to."

With the onset of digitalization, many brands aimed to modernize their logos to adapt to the new reality and look fresh. According to our interviews, companies continuously look to rebrand regularly to stay fresh and for pure marketing reasons. However, this leap becomes extra important when new mediums and technologies are brought into the picture, as with digitalization. Simon Dixon agreed and mentioned, "companies rebrand because of new technologies, like social media, triggered brands to realize they needed to communicate in a new way." In his turn, Sean Thomas thinks that companies redesign often to stay relevant and not look old.

4.2.3 Logo applications and usage

All five participants showed in their interviews that the responsiveness of logos is the most significant feature that digitalization has brought to logo design. Personal computers and the World Wide Web opened new horizons in terms of branding and logo design. Anders Dalgren thinks that digitalization has made the landscape much wider. Nowadays, logos live almost everywhere, which means that logos have to be responsive. Logos have to work independent of their platforms and be scalable. Before digitalization, you could think in terms of only designing a standing and a laying logo lockup. Today there are a lot more mediums, and therefore responsivity is more needed. Rayan Abdullah agreed and mentioned that logos should be suitable for all different contexts and applications, both physical and digital. In his interview, Simon Dixon also agreed and said, “In the digital era, logos have to be used

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everywhere.” which is a crucial difference from how logos were used before digitalization.

Concerning the future of logo usage and its applications, Jonas Berg believed that the future of logos is animation and sound. He believes this because they help add new dimensions to the design, which is a new way for companies to convey their brand message to their customers and stand out. “Netflix and THX are such great examples”, according to Berg. Simon Dixon also believes that new technology and tools are going to lead the following change. He stated that “logotypes in the traditional sense will change and people’s ability to interact with brands will be far more complex and through many technologies”. According to Rayan Abdullah, “design should be appropriate for the five basic senses in addition to the sense of time, design should be timeless”.

4.3 Quantitative vs Qualitative data comparison and analysis

There were several points in the qualitative data that could be backed up by the survey results in the quantitative study. Even though the latter study did not show high differentiating in numbers from the two-time points, the overall needed characteristic for a logo could be seen.

The qualitative data showed that you need a logo to stand out and to have a clear meaning behind it. This meant it needed to be clear and meaningful as well as recognizable and distinctive. This could be seen clearly in the quantitative data where the category of disinctivity went from being a 7.25/10 before digitalization to a 7.82/10 after. This shows that successful logos were very distinct before and became even more distinct. The quantitative data also showed that logos with a literal meaning became less used, and logos with abstract shapes are becoming more. This corresponds to what the interviewees said about that a logo should have a deeper meaning and conceptualize an idea about the company, its values or its story rather than literally describing what the company offers or does. Logos’ function is not communicating information but being recognizable to identify a brand and help it stand out.

The qualitative results pointed clearly that a good logo after digitalization needs to be timeless and responsive. Responsivity means that logos have to work well in all different mediums, both now and in the future.

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Even though the participants disagreed on the reason for why simplicity came about in logo design, whether it was a trend or a technical necessity, it is clear that for a logo to be responsive, it has to have the ability to be presented in a simple way. This does not mean that the logo as a whole needs to be simple, but that the logo has to have the ability to be presented in a simple way for the mediums which require it, such as a social media icon. Further, the logo should not be too simple so that it is no longer distinctive.

There are several categories in the quantitative data that show the logos in the study becoming more simple, as presented below:

● The boldness of the typography became less bold, which can be seen as more simple and less bulky. However the typography overall was still bold, which is needed for the logo to be responsive and work in a smaller size.

● The idea of a logo existing only as a logo mark instead of a logo mark + logotype became more normal, which also leads to an overall more simple logo. It is however normal for responsive logos to have various lockups where they use different combinations of the logo mark and logotype for simplicity and responsivity.

● The overall flatness of the logos went up. Even though the difference was not that significant, the overall flatness was very high both before and after digitalization (8.14/10 ➜ 8.42/10). A flat logo has less design elements and gradients which is more simple.

● The amount of colors used in the logos went down by 8.8% and very few logos used more than three colors both before and after digitalization. Using less colors in the logo leads to a more simple logo.

● The logos became slightly more geometric and overall were closer to being geometric than being organic. Geometric logos tend to utilize less vector curves which leads them to being more simple. However, software that emerged through digitalization also helped the process of building more geometrical and balanced shapes which also can be the reason why they became more popular.

The difference in this category of simplicity can be explained by Sean Thomas, who in the qualitative study explained simplicity as "a double-edged sword". This shows

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that simplicity in the logo can probably differ a lot based on each brand's specific situation: the size of the company, the industry, etcetera, which would have to be further studied in another time since the quantitative study's logos only represent large well-known brands.

Both the quantitative and qualitative also showed that the amount of focus that the brand put on the logo colour had gone up since digitalization. What interviewee Anders Dalgren also mentioned is another way for the company to stand out.

All together our results gave a good answer to our research questions regarding how logo design has changed after digitalization.

There are several categories in the quantitative data that show the logos in the study becoming more simple, as presented below:

5 Discussion

In this following chapter, you will see our discussion concerning both our final results as well as the method of the study. We explore how our results compare to the theoretical framework to see how our study falls into the existing research.

5.1 Result discussion

In general, the results were a little bit surprising. When we started designing the study, we thought that the impact of digitalization would be more significant, and the difference between the results from different categories would be more significant before and after digitalization. However, the results after digitalization matched our expectations perfectly. While the results from the period before digitalization did not. The results from the era before digitalization were very close to the results from the era after digitalization except for two categories which are specified below. In our opinions, the reason behind the slight difference between the different periods might be one of two: either the good futuristic planning and the appropriate strategy and vision by these companies, or the constancy of the science of logo design which can lead us to believe that the fundamental elements of logo design has no trends and has constant principles and characteristics which can differ a little bit to adapt to the new reality but not completely.

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As in the theoretical framework, our results partly showed that the most significant reason for logo design change through digitalization was where the logo was used. Nowadays logos, at least for large companies, have to be made to be used almost anywhere, which sets specific standards on the qualifications of a logo for it to work well on large as small devices. As presented in the theoretical framework, prior research also showed that because digitalization has made the market more saturated, logos have to be more meaningful and distinct to stand out, which our research also shows specifically.

Prior studies we found showed that logos with logo marks and logotypes together are found to be more attractive as well as fully black logos (Bresciani & Del Ponte, 2017). Our research, however, showed that logos with bigger or a sole focus on logo marks were more normal among strong brands. As for the colour, our study did show that having one strong colour was better than having several less strong colours in the logo. However, our research did not focus on any specific colours, such as black. However, from the Logo Life book itself, we noticed that only a number of 14 logos out of 100 were entirely black and not all of them are used in fully black only but in different colours as well.

As our study showed that the focus on colours of the logo has gone up, a study presented in the theoretical framework also backs our studies that colours have a large possibility in helping a brand stand out (Foroudi, Melewar & Gupta, 2017). On the other hand, one big difference between the theoretical framework and our studies is that our studies show that a logo should be abstract and distinct. In comparison, prior research from the mid-90s said that it was better for a logo to have a literal meaning (Callcott and Phillips, 1996).

In terms of the simplicity of logos, studies presented in the theoretical framework said that it was important for the logo (Airey, 2015). Our study showed that it was important for the logo to have the ability to be presented in a simple way but still be responsive and not too simple so that it loses meaning. Lastly, just as the theoretical framework showed that logos should be unique and not follow trends (Kohli & Suri, 2002), our research agreed that following trends is not a good design, but logos should be designed to be timeless.

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5.2 Method discussion

By using both quantitative and qualitative studies, we were able to gather a wide range of results and be able to compare them to industry-professional designers. It would have been even better if we had had more time to do a more extensive survey analysis of more logos and if we could have an even more globally spread interview, but we believe we gathered more than enough information to answer our research questions.

One thing to take into account regarding the quantitative research is that the study only analyzed logos of famous, well-known brands, which was done so that we would analyze successful logos. However, it would have been good to complement the study by also analyzing good logos in smaller, more local brands also, which is explained more in the next chapter about further research.

6 Conclusions and further research

The purpose of the research was to study how logo design has changed through digitization and provide an insight on how to design a successful logo in the digital age and where to use it.

6.1 Conclusions

Through our two studies, we concluded that logos needed to be recognizable and meaningful and therefore consist of more than just visual design, which is shown through distinctivity. Another definition of a successful logo is that it should be timeless and responsive. And that for the logo to be responsive, it has to have the possibility to be presented in a simple way.

In general, the results do not show an apparent critical impact on logo design elements that were researched in this study. The specific characteristics of the logos that have been changed more than the others as explored in the first study are mainly that logos after digitalization focus more on logo marks rather than logotypes and that the logos focus more on one key colour in their logos than before.

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Digitalization did mainly affect where logos were used and that they needed to be responsive and ready for all current mediums, as well as future ones. It made the logo design process easier and faster as it brought new technologies and tools. Sound and movement are just some ways of how logos can be represented in the future. Even in 3d spaces, they should have to learn how to live.

6.1.1 Practical and scientific implications

The above-described conclusions have implications for both industry practice and research.

For the practical implications on the design industry, this study can help logo design beginners to understand what a logo is and represents and what elements and characteristics are essential when designing a good logo. These insights can also help experienced logo designers to design timeless and good logos for their clients, which helps them in achieving their business goals and to stand out in their markets. Many of the findings listed above can also help marketers and brand strategists to create more successful marketing plans and brand strategies for brands, such as the increasing focus on colours and logo marks, which emphasises the brand awareness for these brands. This study also indicated the importance of having responsive logos and logos that work in both digital and traditional mediums, which is an important thing to be considered by developers and user interface and user experience designers while designing platforms.

Scientifically, there is not much research that defines what a good logo is or what characteristics can distinguish a good logo using a scientific approach. In addition to that, many people associate logo design with art. This research's first and main scientific contribution is providing an insight of what characteristics could distinguish a successful logo in current and future mediums. This research also gave insights into how different logo elements should be and what to avoid in designing distinctive and successful logos.

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6.2 Further research

Our research covered logo design elements and characteristics in addition to the logo applications before and after digitalization. Potential research could extend our approach by covering other brand elements such as colour and typography or even implementing the same research on different eras such as the industrial era. Other future work could be examining the reasoning behind our findings from another perspective or grounds, such as marketing or psychology.

This study can also be a reference for other academics and researchers within the field of informatics and visual communications to help them to predict the future of logo design and how logo design elements can be influenced by the emergence of new technologies and changes such as cultural and lifestyle. At the same time, study how new technologies can impact logo design applications and usage and how. For example: researching how logo design can change because of virtual reality technologies or how these new technologies adapt to be logo friendly and present logos in a good and efficient way.

Since one of our main findings stated that big brands are focusing more on their brand colours today more than ever, another potential research can be approached by academics and researchers within visual communications and marketing fields by studying the importance of colours in the visual communication process and how recipients absorb different colours and associate them with different brands.

Finally, in this research, we approached only famous and successful brands, which indicate that the same research can be implemented and cover smaller groups of brands or even specific industries and compare the findings with the findings from this research.

The impact of digitalization on logo design

Abstract

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Table of contents

1

Background

2

Method and implementation

3

Theoretical framework

4

Results

5

Discussion

6

Conclusions and further research